Life After Death: We Can Survive/Issue 5
“We have a car just down the street,” Devon said, pointing down the road as the trio walked through the parking lot of the shopping center. “No, that would draw too much attention,” Scott said in return. “And not just from the dead. It’s not that far, we can walk.” The three walked across the street and turned to the left, opposite of the direction Devon and Leslie arrived from. They walked down the road for several minutes until the reached a crosswalk. Scott held his hand out, and then quietly shuffled to the right, pressing up against the side of a building on the corner of the street. He peered around it and then quickly pulled himself back. He looked over to Devon and Leslie, and gestured them to come over to him with his head. “There’s five of them,” Scott whispered as the other two now joined him. “You guys got knives right?” “Yeah,” Leslie replied before Devon had the chance to open his mouth. “Good. You’re gonna need them. Be quick and quiet. I’ll take the farthest two; you two can pick between the rest. Let’s go.” Scott jolted himself around the corner and sped past the first three rotting corpses. Devon and Leslie followed, with Devon stabbing the closest one in the back of the head as it was distracted. Leslie ran past and leaped toward the body, stabbing her knife into its head. However, she failed to stab its brain, and instead lodged the knife deep into the corpse’s cheek. She tried to pull the knife out, but it was an awkward angle and the corpse began to advance on her. Leslie let go of the knife and began to back up, but tripped on some broken fence and fell back. She panicked as the corpse was mere feet away, but Devon quickly grabbed it and jammed his knife into its temple. He pulled his knife out and then began to pull out Leslie’s. “LOOK OUT!” Leslie screamed as the third corpse pounced on Devon, knocking him over. Devon barely managed to hold it up, but was unable to grab his knife to kill it. Leslie practically fell to the ground beside the corpse with her knife still jammed in it and tried to pull it out to no avail. Suddenly, Scott darted past her, grabbed the back of the corpse’s shirt, yanked it’s head back, and stabbed it, pushing it off Devon as he began to rise to his feet. “Can’t even take care of three,” he chastised. “How the hell’d you two even make it this far?” “It was some bad luck,” Devon said. “We’re not usually this...clumsy.” “Well you’d better shove that horseshoe back up your ass because I’m not dying today, even if it means leaving you to instead.” “Yeah, alright. It’s not gonna happen again.” “Good. Now come on, the store’s just down the block.” Scott turned around and started to jog down the sidewalk. Devon and Leslie turned to each other and exchanged brief looks of worry before starting off after him. They ran past a couple of houses and stopped at the last building on the block. It was a mom and pop-esque drug store, covered in dirty, chipped, cracked white panels. On the top of the building was a big, white banner with the words “Andy and Claire’s Medicine” in big, serifed red letters. To the right of them was what was once a light-up pill bottle sign, now a mess of metal bars and wires beginning to pull away from the wall of the building. Just beyond the drug store was a horde of around 20 of the dead, surrounding and eating a body on the ground. Scott tiptoed up and opened the door, holding it open for the other two and softly shutting it behind them. “Thank god that stupid fuck got here before we did,” Scott remarked inside the nearly pitch black store. “Now this has to be quick and quiet. No telling how long we have until he’s nothing but bones and they’re on our asses.” Scott took off his gray backpack and pulled a flashlight out of it. He began scanning the aisles until he found was he was looking for three aisles down. He grabbed a bottle of ibuprofen near the front of the aisle and then started going down until he found some bottles of antibiotics. Devon and Leslie remained at the door, Devon looking out the window to make sure they wouldn’t get surrounded whilst shaking his leg rapidly out of nervousness, and Leslie browsing the products near the front of the store. Devon heard a bump at the end of the store and jolted his head back to look. After seeing nothing unusual, he dismissed it as Scott getting the medicine and looked back out the window. Getting anxious, he tilted his head up and took a deep breath, but noticed the two holes at the top of the door where most stores would have a bell. He looked back at Leslie who had her eyes on a gum ball machine at the other end of the front of the store. ---- Zach sat against the glass windows of the grocery store. He had propped the door open slightly with a box of pop for some air, and began nodding off. Before he could fall asleep, the sounds of the dead growling outside the door snapped his eyes open. He poked his head around the corner and looked out the door at two corpses walking past the front door. Startled, Zach backed up and bumped into the shelves behind him, knocking boxes of macaroni to the floor. The noise attracted the corpses, and they pushed themselves against the doors. One of them shoved it’s hand through the crack of the door and tried to bust its way through. Unable to kick the pop away and shut the door, Zach felt the floor behind him until he grasped his flashlight, and held it up. “Come on, assholes,” he whispered to himself. ---- Scott finished grabbing the medicine and exited the aisle. “Ready?” he asked the other two as he approached them. Before they could respond, someone began running at Scott from the back of the store. Scott swiftly turned around and began to pull his pistol out of his holster, but the man tackled him and stabbed a knife in his right forearm. Devon and Leslie ran to help and Devon jumped on the man, yanking him off Scott and pinning him to the ground. Scott rose to his feet and wrapped his hand around the knife embedded into his arm. He took a deep breath and pulled it out with one swift motion, grunting as he did so. “Fucking hell,” he said as he let the knife drop to the ground. Devon stared at the man as he squirmed underneath him. He had a ghostly, bony face and his arms were skeletal looking, as if he hadn’t eaten since the start of the outbreak. Suddenly, the man sunk his teeth into Devon’s hand, causing him to thrust back in pain. The man used this to his advantage and jammed his elbow into Devon’s crotch, making him keel over in pain. The man rose to his knees and spun around. Seeing the knife on the ground, he grabbed it and turned to stab Devon, but Scott grabbed him and tried to restrain him. The man managed to break free and turned the knife back on Scott, just barely missing the side of his face this time. “Get the fuck away from me!” the man yelled as he took another swing at Scott, but he managed to avoid the knife and pushed the man against the corner of the aisle. He dropped down onto one knee, and then spotted Leslie hunched over, attempting to get Devon to his feet. He pounced at her, but she backed away, screaming. She crawled backwards and tried to get to her feet, but the man rushed her again. *BOOM* The man dropped to the ground and clenched the side of his torso as blood began to press against his dingy shirt. Leslie looked up at Devon, leaning against the wall, gun in hand. After a few seconds, he dropped the gun, and put his hands on his head, taking in what just happened. Scott bent over, picked the gun up, and approached the injured man. Leslie got up and backed against the wall as Scott aimed the gun at the man’s head. “No.” Devon said. “Don’t kill him.” Scott turned and looked back at Devon. “''Really''? After what he just did?” he retorted. “After what he just did to your sister?” “I...he’s already been shot. I don’t...I don’t know. I don’t know if I can handle it.” “Handle what?” “Killing someone.” “Well...good thing I’m the one with the gun then.” “Well-you know what I mean. I don’t want to stand by and watch while--” “Then go hide behind some shelves if you’re gonna be that much of a bitch.” “Just leave him, Scott. It’s a waste of a bullet.” Scott pondered what Devon said, and then looked over at the front of the store as the door and windows were surrounded by the dead trying to break into the store. “Yeah...yeah, you’re right.” Scott put the gun back in his holster and picked the knife up off the ground. “N-n...no...no-o! No...d-don...t…” the man mumbled in the midst of his shaking and crying. Without a second thought, Scott jammed it into the man’s eye. “NO.” Devon said, but it was too late. “What the fuck man?” “There’s clearly something you need to learn, Devon,” Scott said as he rose to his feet. “People are dangerous. If someone tries to take your life...or your sister’s...your mom’s...you don’t let that asshole off with a warning. You don’t let them live. You kill the fucker...you make sure they can’t come back and take away someone you love…” “Scott--” “Stop. Just...stop,” Scott looked down and saw blood dripping down his hand. In the heat of the battle, he had forgotten about his wound. He put his hand on his arm and looked back at the corpses trying to make their way inside. “We need to figure out just how the hell we’re gonna make it out of here.” Credits * * * * * Deaths *Mark Trivia *First (and last) appearance of Mark.